


Drifting Tides, Lost Souls

by Rhydnara



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Cure for Kepral's, Death, Depression, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, F/M, Hospitals, It's not a crossover episode, Kaidan is blind, M/M, No Shepard without Vakarian, Past Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Poor jellyfish, Self-Harm, Sexy Times, Shepard Dies, Shoshana - Freeform, Smut, Suicide, The fishtank was stupid anyway, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-22 08:27:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 20,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6072168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhydnara/pseuds/Rhydnara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They should have known.  </p>
<p>After what she's been through, they should have known what would happen. Now, all that's left is an empty shell.  Moving, fighting.  All because of a promise.  Just a handful of exchanged words stand between them and complete destruction.</p>
<p>So she'll keep moving, she'll keep fighting.  Because she has to.  And when she's done fighting...</p>
<p>This is not a happy story. If you were looking for a fluffy ending piece where Shepard and Thane live happily ever after, you should look elsewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is the result of crying over losing Thane for the last four years, and a rereading of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Seriously, if you want to read something happy, go read something else.
> 
> If something doesn't line up in the game, if something is out of order or someone says something that someone else was supposed to say, please don't correct me. All "mistakes" are here for a reason.

_She's standing on something soft, something warm. She glances down and sees that it's sand. Golden, rich. Microscopic slivers of glass that tickle instead of slice. Tiny grains sift through her toes, warmth seeping through her skin into her bare feet. Her skirts flow around her ankles. Her solid ankles. No bruises, no breaks. Just bone and muscle and flesh._

_The skirts are clean and new, fresh. They swirl around her legs like the waves foaming just in front of her. She could spin and they would fly out, create a whirling tornado of white. That's what she's wearing. White. She hasn't worn white before. There has never been a reason to. It would eventually turn red. Brown. Dirty. But here, now, she's like a silver ghost._

_The skirts meet a lacy waist, which reaches up to thin straps across her shoulders, her neck. They are full, human. No trace of the emaciated frame or the translucent skin. She is healthy and alive. Her skin isn't ghostly, though. It's tanned. Sunkissed, as they used to say. Whoever they ever were._

_The bright sun bursts out from the sky, a blazing yellow that is almost blinding. It's a sun she knows so well. She wasn't born beneath it, but she spent six months with little to do other than stare up at it and contemplate all of the other suns she has flown past._

_Her hair cascades down her back, luxurious and long for the first time in decades. She can do that, here. Doesn't have to worry about crew cuts or hairties or ponytails. Getting strands caught in the straps of her helmet or grabbed by a mercenary. It's brushed and it glistens._

_She stretches out a hand, reaching. Her nails are clean, cut, painted even. She remembers nail polish, remembers that she used to chip and peel it off. It would flake in the shower. But the luscious red glows on her fingernails. Paint, not blood._

_Her hands are so soft. No callouses or scars, not gripping a gun or punching a reporter. They are the hands of a woman. That is what she can be, here. Her arms are solid, tan, long and graceful. The blood seeping beneath the flesh, spilled out when the needle hits at the wrong angle. It's not here, along with the deep pits where she injects the needle, over and over again._

_Her eyes aren't shining. She remembers that saying. Wide and shining and bright. That's what her eyes are out there, what they turned into when she opened them after two years in the darkness. Here, though, they are brown and simple. Eyes she can see with. And when she glances up, out across the water, she sees him._

_If she could just reach out a little farther…_

Shepard wakes, the alarm next to her bed beeping. Another day. Or time. Days don't have meaning in the depths of space. 

A miracle that she is even able to differentiate between time, that there is ever a break between awake and awake. She must have used something powerful last night, enough to tip her over the edge. She wishes it didn't, though. Mornings after a break are the hardest to pull herself into action from. 

The last vestiges of the dream slip away. She considers whether she should try again tonight, or just stay up, staring into her datapad, trying to pull out every last sliver of information she can. Attack points, armor weaknesses, ship speeds and gravitational trajectories. It is a better use of her time, anyway. Today, though (and it IS today, she looks at the clock she has synced to Vancouver) she has definite plans. 

Plans, like everything has been labeled and organized and set up to make her ready. She laughs. It feels as though none of her plans have worked for ages. Ever since she turned herself in, ever since the Alliance put her under house arrest, everything has gone wrong. 

The laugh sounds strange, though. Her throat shouldn't be able to do that anymore. In this world, this space, this time. No matter; she files the noise away, decides not to dwell on it. She walks over to the cabinet and pulls out the day's dose. Her arm is covered in a spiderweb of lines. Scars and bruises. Purple and yellow and bright red. They coalesce into a net right over the vein. 

The needle slips today, decides it won't go straight in. It tilts a little, spearing through the delicate tissue so a dark red flower blooms beneath her skin. She will have to hide it beneath her armor, just as she hides everything else. No one has seen her bare arms since- 

No. She won't think about that. She did enough thinking during the break. For now, she heads out of her quarters, the delicious poison spreading through her body, giving her the strength to keep going. Keep planning. 

Keep failing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you're still reading! I must assume you are a masochist, because this story only gets sadder from here on. Enjoy!

_She sits at a table, the cool metal raising gooseflesh along her arms as she stretches out to clasp his hands. They are surprisingly warm, a distinct difference from the table._

_Their fingers don't fit exactly right. Or maybe it was that her fingers never fit right before this. She makes it work, though. Slipping her fingers in a different way. Yes, this is right._

_His voices rumbles. She can't hear the words, but she knows what they say. Watches his eyes flash, sees the words that spill out. The words and the voice and the flashing mixes in her head._

_She is dizzy with feelings. Things she hasn't felt in such a long time. She picks through the feelings. There's sadness, which she is always familiar with. The sense of loss, something she knew since she was a teenager. Regret and guilt are so deeply ingrained in her that it fills her stomach on a daily basis._

_But there's also joy and happiness. He thought those were lost and could never be recovered. But they can press together, share their feelings and bodies and find them again._

Shepard opens her eyes to hear Garrus shouting at her. 

He doesn't need to be shouting. Over the sound of the wind rushing through the cracks in the shuttle doors, their helmet mics could easily transmit the sound. But Garrus wants to be traditional, wants to congratulate her with direct sound waves instead of the usual transformation from sound to light to sound. 

She performed a miracle. That's all it can be called, claims Garrus and everyone else she has spoken to. The Quarians and the Geth are working together, Rannoch is saved. 

How did she do that? She worked with Tali; that much she knows. The memories are leaving her so quickly now. It's a side effect she was ready for. She was hoping for it, actually. If only the drugs took the long term memories, too. 

Tali was so grateful. She almost didn't even notice that Shepard barely spoke. But she did notice. Tali tried speaking with Garrus about it. She's on the shuttle with them now, her hand drifting down Garrus' leg. Shepard should take note of that. 

She can't tell her squadmates not to fraternize. She's the last person who can institute that rule. The old Shepard would be happy that her two closest friends are figuring out their complicated feelings. But the old Shepard isn't here, on this shuttle. 

This Shepard, the one the galaxy was left with, vaguely recalls that someone isn't on the shuttle with them. Someone who should be. Or, not a someone. A some-it? No, that's not the right word. 

_"My name is Legion, for we are many."_

That doesn't give her the right word. She did well in her language courses. It was so long ago, but she should remember the grammar and structure and vocabulary. But she can't. Whatever isn't on the shuttle, whatever was lost down on Rannoch, it isn't worth thinking about further. 

She detects a dip in Garrus' shouting, nods as though she were listening all along. Yes, she performed a miracle. Yes, they really are going to win. Yes yes yes. How many times can she say yes before it becomes reality? 

She tried saying it before, said and cried and screamed it. But it didn't help. It still happened. He still- 

She's not ready this time, either.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So besides Margaret Atwood, I have to admit that I took a lot of inspiration from Patrick Weekes's brilliant writing of the character Cole from Dragon Age: Inquisition. Bonus points to you if you can pick out the parts inspired by him!
> 
> Also, why are you still reading? This story is just going to keep getting sadder.

_She's in the gymnasium._

_Well, it's not really a gymnasium. The Cerberus ship may be luxurious, giving Joker leather seating, but it's not luxurious enough to provide a gymnasium. It's the hangar bay, but they've moved the Hammerhead over to one side and cleared out a small space for exercise mats, punching bags, weights, and treadmills._

_Shepard is standing in front of one of the punching bags. She rams her fist into the stiff fabric, then snaps it back and shoots out an uppercut with her other fist. She repeats this motion, occasionally shifting her hips to provide more force. She should have cloth wrapped around her knuckles, but she forgot the strips in her quarters. All she could think of once she opened the message was getting down here to pummel out the frustration._

_She thought she loved Kaidan. It was his arms she sought refuge in before going through the relay. It was his lips she took comfort in, his body that distracted her enough that night that she was able to sleep. Kaidan had been there for her, had protected her from the mass of journalists and security and hero worship that greeted her when they returned to the Citadel. And it was Kaidan that she pushed onto that last shuttle, the one that left her floating in a vacuum while her life leaked out into the depths of space._

_But it was also Kaidan that stood in front of her on Horizon, abandoning her because the Cerberus logo blazed across her armor._

_And so she slams her fists into the punching bag, over and over again. The skin is raw, but she keeps punching. Sweat is running down her back, her hair is plastered across her forehead. Little splotches of blood stick to the bag, not enough for it to be streaming down her hands, but she's getting close. She wants to feel the pain leave through her knuckles, get sucked into the punching bag and away, out of her heart._

_The only thing she can hear is the blood thudding in her ears and the thump thump thump as she hits the bag. She misses the hanger bay doors swishing open. Then again, even if she could hear anything else, she wouldn't hear him walking toward her. He's too quiet, too used to stalking his prey to ever announce his presence._

_But she does feel his hand grip her shoulder, slowly turning her around to face him. He slips a hand down to touch her fist, and gently rubs a thumb over the bloody wound._

_She doesn't know how she ends up sitting on the bench with her hands held in his. She doesn't know how or when the tears start to flow, but she's sobbing out her story. How she gave everything, everything, for the Alliance, the Council, for Kaidan. And he still left her on Horizon. She **died** for them. _

_And now they all expect her to keep fighting and turn aside the only help she's been offered. And miraculously, he listens. She gazes into his dark eyes, expecting to see black pits. But discovers that he has pupils. Dark, but eyes that can welcome and accept her even with the Cerberus logo stitched into her clothing. He blinks, one set of lids horizontal, the other vertical. She's never seen anything so beautiful in her life._

_Because she isn't just seeing him, she's seeing herself. Not the blind adoration that she saw reflected in Kaidan's eyes, or the hopeful expectation she sees in her crew, but the real her. The survivor of Mindoir, the Butcher of Torfan, the Savior of the Citadel. Virtues and faults all wrapped together into who she has become, into who he allows her to be._

_And then she's kissing him. Through the tears and the pain, she seeks his mouth and is amazed to find him kissing her back. He tastes like cinnamon and honey, spicy and sweet. It's unlike any kiss she's had before, a purely alien thing and yet so right that she has to remind herself to breathe. And when she breaks away and takes a deep breath, the colors in the room start to swirl together. Her pupils are blown, like she's been drinking. And she has; she's just taken the most wonderful drug she'll ever have, the one that she realizes she's needed all along._

She wonders if it would be better if she didn't know. Ignorance is bliss, they used to say. 

Again, that enigmatic "they." Who were they? Did they ever have a face, a body? A collective? Still, it was something they used to say. But it isn't ignorance. Not exactly. 

She knows she's lost it. She had it, once. It was a series of ideas, plans, hopes and dreams. The thing keeping her going, keeping her finger on the trigger and the mic in her ear. So if she doesn't have it anymore, what keeps her finger there? 

Oh, right. Even without sanity, you can still have drive. She lost that sanity, but then found it again. Lost and found; a box they kept outside the school office where you could search through discarded items and maybe, just maybe find what you were looking for. And she did find it, she really did. 

But then she lost it again. Remembers writing her name in her books so if she lost them, others could return them to her. That won't work, this time. She couldn't write her name on her sanity. So she is forced to sit and think about how she's lost it, this time for good. 

They are en route to Thessia. This time, the "they" has a face. Several, actually. Cortez, Garrus, Liara. Even the Prothean, Javik. So many faces. And they're hurtling through space, evading the Reapers. 

Hurtling through space. Humans have only been doing that for, how long? She learned it in history, it was written right there on the page. But now she can't remember. Maybe the drugs are finally leaching the long term memories out. It wasn't too long ago, though. She remembers that much. 

They could scuttle along through space. Enough so they could make it to Luna or Mars. And then they found the buried technology and met the Turians and almost destroyed themselves. It was a different they, however. Always different faces. 

This group, this set of faces is hurtling through space because more faces need help. Liara is one of them. Liara, the shy, uncertain scientist who stumbled into her crew and then became one of the most powerful figures in the galaxy. She helped Liara get there, she remembers. Taking down the Yaag, finding the letter… 

She's not ready to think about that letter. She tried to process it when she found it and failed. 

She still can't do it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold on to yer butts. Shit's about to hit the fan.

_The Batarian lies dead beneath her. She's crouched over him, sitting in his bloody entrails. Her hands are clamped around his throat. She isn't sure if she actually killed him, or if he was dead before she ever got there. But he's dead now. She keeps squeezing, dedicated to draining any last bit of life out of him. Or her. How can you tell if a Batarian is male or female? Do they even have genders?_

_She's young. Sixteen, maybe seventeen? None of the familiar scars are there. Her arms are clear, her back smooth. That spot where a geth's shattered arm sliced the inside of her thigh, cutting down to the bone - the lingering ripple of flesh where scar tissue healed over the wound is missing._

_Her body is bruised and battered, though. The first scars will appear once these injuries heal. Blood cakes her arms, her face. She has at least three broken ribs, a shattered tibia. She's not in good shape. But if she stops squeezing, he could get back up and enslave her. Isn't that what happened to everyone else? Her family? Slaves. Either that, or dead. Maybe dead is better._

_She has no idea how long she's been sitting here. The sun has finally started to come up, light leaking over the horizon to highlight the hazy smoke still filling the air. Why would they set fire to the structures if they wanted survivors to press into slavery? It doesn't seem like a very good plan, but that's what the Batarians do. Burn and rape and pillage. Well, maybe not rape. Hopefully not rape. That was the Vikings who raped. But she's not a Viking. And neither is the Batarian underneath her. Just a slaver. A dead slaver._

_Breathing hurts. Not just because of the broken ribs. Her throat is scalded from breathing in the hot ash. The air is thick with it, clogging her sinuses. Breathing through her mouth has always made her feel slow, reminding her of the sinus infections she suffers from where her head feels stuffy and full. Her head hurts right now, but that's from the concussion. Not from a sinus infection._

_Is it a concussion? It probably is. Her head hit the pavement hard. There's dried blood in her matted hair._

_Off to the side, just out of her peripheral vision, she knows he's sitting there, kneeling on the ground. He's not sitting on a dead Batarian, but is pointing to the one she's sitting on. He talks about pressure points and vital organs, showing her the quickest, and sometimes not the quickest, ways to kill one. Slide a knife right in here, and the Batarian will drop like a rock. Pinch right there, and you'll have him howling in pain. Of course he would know these things. He didn't kill the Batarians for a contract, but in vengeance. So he knows how to maximize the pain, make sure the Batarian feels every ounce of his rage._

_She listens, her eyes darting around to take note of the pressure points. But her hands don't leave the slaver's throat._

_A shuttle lands in the distance and he disappears. She hears the engines cut off a few seconds after she sees it land. Her eyes flicker between the body beneath her and the horizon, debating whether she should get up. No, if she gets up he could attack her. She'll stay put, make sure the Batarian really is dead._

_Eventually, she sees two figures walking out of the haze toward her. One steps forward. It's a tall, dark skinned military type in crisp Alliance uniform. She could pick one of these guys out of a crowd instantaneously. There's always trouble when the Alliance comes knocking._

_The man crouches down next to her, his arms resting on his knees. He reaches out, but she jerks back away from him._

_"My name is David. Can you tell me what happened here?"_

_No, she can't. Her throat won't work, won't describe the horror and destruction she's witnessed. The man tries to touch her arm, pull her hand away from the Batarian's throat. But she clamps her hands down even harder, refusing to budge._

_"Alright, how about your name?"_

_"Sho-." No. Not that name. The Batarians took that name away, tried to make her a slave but had to kill her instead. Then who should she be?_

_"I'm Shepard. Alexandra Shepard."_

She can't believe how successful she is on Thessia. She expected the situation to be a complete disaster, but she's able to pull together enough of a force to stand against the Reapers. Wave after wave of enemy falls before her. She issues orders and watches her actions play out before her as units move across the battlefield. She is able to divert enough resources to save the wounded. There will hardly be any casualties. Even Kai Leng falls to her.

It feels so good, sinking her omniblade into his eyeless face. Circuitry shoots out; there's no human left. She breaths in the smell of burning electronics, the toxic gases that signify her revenge. She slices him open from face to crotch, sends his limp body flying across the concrete.

Javik is impressed. As his weapon spews bullets, cutting down the disgusting, nightmarish creatures the Reapers have created, he remembers all of the work his people did to prepare this cycle. Surrounded by Asari artifacts, he recalls all of the resources diverted to raise these creatures from savagery to power. How far could they have come had his people focused on humans instead? They had seemed so pathetic before, barely being able to scrape together an existence. But now, they have produced Commander Shepard. And Shepard is an unstoppable hammer that crashes through the Reaper forces.

Javik watches Shepard rip the cybernetic man to pieces and finds a sliver of hope. He feels so empowered to finally fight the Reapers and win. He is glad he joined up with Shepard's crew. He thought it would be demeaning to work with such simplistic creatures, animals that fed off of Prothean technology like parasites to finally claw their way out of barbarism. But that's not what he's found.

Liara even manages to come to terms with the revelations about her people. She is dismayed to find the Protheans so arrogant, and to learn that most of her people's history is a lie. She is offended that the Prothean so carelessly brushes off the accomplishments resplendent on her homeworld. But she is forced to admit that it will not be her people to lead this cycle to victory. She is comforted, though, to realize that they are in safe hands. Commander Shepard will destroy the Reapers. Shepard, her friend, will protect them. After all that she has accomplished here, there is no way they can lose.

When they step off the shuttle, Garrus claps her on the back. Cortez actually cheers. The rest of the crew gathers around her, exulting in her victory. They reach out to touch the hero. She is triumphant. Just one more accomplishment to add to her list, one more step toward finishing this fight. She steps out proud, ready to take on the next battle…

Why is she lying to herself? What's the point in these fantasies? Thessia was a complete disaster.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to switch the order around, but I realized that this needed to happen before the original chapter five.

_The aliens all kneel in front of her, lined up in neat rows. Their heads are bowed, their tethered hands stretched out in front of them. It must be infuriating for them, to be drawn out so pathetically in front of their mortal enemy._

_Of course, they probably don't know she's their mortal enemy. They have no idea she's the same human whose colony was crushed to dust almost a decade ago. And in some hidden part of her mind, she knows that these aren't the same batarians who did that to her. But they are still batarians, still slavers, still need to be destroyed._

_Shepard has done the impossible, the first act of many to come. She's taken back Torfan, wrested it away from the marauders who invaded. She had been sent on a suicide mission; no one expected her to actually succeed. And she'd had to fight to be given the chance, had to argue past lieutenants and generals and even an admiral. They didn’t want to waste resources on something they'd written off as a lost cause. But her old friend, the man who rescued her from the dust of her old life, Anderson had spoken for her and swayed their minds._

_So she'd been given a ship, a dinky old rusting hulk of a ship that should have been scrapped before she learned to walk, and an extremely basic crew. They hadn't even wished her luck before she left, probably had the condolence letters already written up in preparation for the families who would lose members under her command._

_A lot of those letters would have to be sent out, anyway. For most of her crew, it had been a suicide mission. The first man fell as soon as the pressure doors opened, downed by a round of fire from the lone batarian roaming the halls. The second fell to a grenade. The batarians are idiots, carrying grenades when working in a pressurized environment. Blow on tiny hole in the walls, and they'd all suffocate while the atmosphere vented out into the lifeless moon. It doesn't matter how deep underground you are; there's no atmosphere._

_Now Shepard is down to three soldiers, and of course herself. Major Kyle has stood behind her every step of the way, but he looks troubled. He argues that they now have prisoners of war, and there are rules they have to follow._

_But the batarians don't follow rules. They are, by their very definition, lawless. They weren't following any laws when they attacked the Skyllian Verge. Elanos Haliat had never heard of Geneva, or even understood the term "POW" when he went after Elysium. Shepard still bares the scar on her lower back where a batarian stabbed her with a piece of rebar. Didn't even have the decency to shoot her._

_So Shepard continues to ignore Kyle. But she sees him standing in the corner, watching her. He stands straight, his hands tucked behind his back like he always does. If she tries to look straight at him, he disappears. But she picks him up in her peripheral vision. She's being judged, and she hates it._

_Who is he to judge her? He's done worse. He's admitted to it. And besides, there are tactical advantages to what she's about to do. If she takes these batarians back as prisoners of war, precious Alliance resources will be spent to keep them alive. It's not like they can ransom them back. Batarians don't bother with ransoms. They assume anyone captured is little better than dead. What would happen if one of them broke their bonds while being transferred to another ship? How much damage could they cause?_

_So she ignores him, and she ignores Major Kyle, and she ignores the voice of Anderson in her head urging her to be merciful. She ignores them because the batarians have never been merciful, and they don’t deserve mercy. Shepard orders her soldiers out of the airlock, and when the pressure doors slide shut again, she doesn't hesitate before hitting the button that opens the outer door._

_The batarians are sucked out into space, flash frozen before they can register what's happened. And he keeps standing there, in the empty airlock, staring at her. Judging her. Pitying her._

There's a twinge of pain between her shoulders. Shepard tries to flex, to ease the aching muscles. She always wakes up tense after one of the guilt dreams. And she has plenty of mornings where she wakes up with guilt ridden muscle spasms. There's only one thing she can do on mornings like these.

She's sitting on the bed, her arm stretched out across her knee. Shepard bends down, inspects the damage to her veins. She's running out of area to inject, there's so much scar tissue covering the area. Switching to the other arm isn't a good idea, she's too clumsy and will end up wasting doses. She follows one vein up her arm, towards her wrist. That might work, if she starts injecting further up.

She needs to get a move on, though. She's meeting Jack in the bar in a few minutes, and Jack gets cranky if she's late. Shepard wonders why she bothers socializing with her friends. Why does she push herself so hard to maintain the façade of normality? Are they really that dense that they can't see what's happened to her?

Of course they are. Running around, saving Tuchanka, curing the Genophage. Rescuing Palavan and recruiting Garrus. So many movements, so much action and not one of them said anything. They knew it was going to happen, it wasn't a secret. They even knew he was there. She saw Kaidan lying in that hospital bed, his head bashed in and not one person in the clinic mentioned anything about the real reason she was at Huerta Memorial.

It hurts so much to even think about. Because it's not just the sadness she feels or the gnawing emptiness inside. It's anger right now. Anger that they could ask so much of her, expect her to save the bloody galaxy, and choose not to see what she's become.

Could they have prevented it? Could Mordin have come up with a cure before dying on that alien planet? It was foolish for her to have even hoped he could. The Salarian doctor could perform miracles, but those miracles never seemed to help her.

They all knew, and they all did nothing. And they continue to do nothing.

Before she realizes it, Shepard is jamming the needle into her arm. She cuts through the scar tissue and jabs down, down, taking her anger out on her own body. She'll make them see. Make it impossible for them to ignore her pain.

And then she remembers why she's doing all of this, why she doesn't just end it now. She's not enduring this agony for them. Not Jack, not Tali, not even Garrus. She's doing it for him. Because she promised.

Her eyes snap up at the hiss of the door. Garrus walks through. She has a split second to decide if she'll keep hiding, but it's too late. Garrus has already seen the needle, the scars, the blood. Her arm is dripping. She hasn't just injected herself, she's torn a ragged hole in her arm. How did she do that with just a needle? Shepard glances down and sees something sharp flash in her hand. She didn't even know she was holding that.

The surprise on Garrus's face is quickly replaced with horror. He rushes forward and drops to his knees, yanking the knife out of her hand. In the scuffle, the box of needles crashes to the floor, glass shattering and sending liquid cocktails flying. He stares at her bloody arm, looks at the needles, then looks into her eyes.

"Why?" His voice is full of anguish. He really is surprised, he honestly did not expect to find her like this. Shepard can't believe Garrus has been this dense.

"Do you really have to ask?" She stares back, her face completely blank. How is this not obvious to him? As the silence draws between them, Shepard glances at the needles, at the blood, and finally to the empty spot on her bed. Next to her crumpled sheets. She sleeps to one side, never disturbing half of the mattress. Garrus follows her look, and his shoulders slump.

"Of course…" he mutters. He's been lying to himself, trying to pretend that she's picked herself up, moved on. But of course she hasn't. Deep down, he must have known all along that she couldn't.

"Garrus," she starts. The anger drops from her voice and she's back to emptiness. She reaches down and cups his mandible with the hand that didn't slice her arm open. Drops of blood drip off, hitting the floor with tiny blips. She strokes a thumb across the scarring, touching the reconstruction so expertly carried out by her guardian angel, Dr. Chakwas. Or maybe Garrus is her guardian angel. Archangel.

"Promise me."

But this time, the promise isn't apparent. He won't know what she wants. Before, he hadn't had to explain it, she had instinctually known that she had to keep fighting. But now, Garrus won't know.

"Promise me that when this is over, you'll end it for me."

He starts to argue, because now he knows. At the end of the day, no doctor worth their salt will be brave enough to pull the plug. Shepard knows how this ends, knows that even if the Reapers manage to mutilate her, she'll end up hooked up to countless machines that beep and sing, only to keep her broken heart pumping. And she'll be powerless to stop it. But Garrus won't.

"No, Shepard, I can't." He draws back, her hand falls to the bed beneath her. His eyes dart around the room, trying to focus on anything besides her face. Shepard reaches out and grabs him by the shoulders.

"You have to. No one else will." She's pleading now. No anger, no emptiness, but desperation. She'll beg if she has to. Garrus starts to shake his head when she stands up, throwing him back.

She reveals her naked body to him, clothed only in a sports bra and boxers. They cling to her thin body. She's never been lithe, always a little stocky but muscular. Now, she is a ghost. Her skin is pale and almost translucent. Bruises and scars criss-cross around her arms, legs, chest. Bones protrude at every angle. Without her armor, it is clear that she is dying, her body barely clinging to the few precious nutrients that are so rarely forced into her body alongside the drugs.

"Don't make me live like this!" Her shaking legs collapse beneath her and she crashes to the floor, weeping. Garrus stares at the heap of broken woman before him, and gently picks her up, trying his best to avoid the broken glass and blood. He smooths out the sheets as best he can with one hand, then lays her in the bed almost reverently. Once Shepard is settled, he cradles her hand in his claw. If his species could cry, he would be sobbing to see his closest friend brought so low. But all he can do is nod his head.

"I promise."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of a mix up with the pattern in this chapter. Enjoy the gut punch.

He wants her to hold a memorial service. Kolyat. She needs to remember his name, the son. The prodigal son… Except he wasn't. 

She remembers punching him in the face to stop him from ruining everything. That punch saved so much. Her fist tingles at the memory, little jitters of energy that race up through her veins, pushing through the bruises and tears.

Kolyat, the son, wants her to hold a memorial service. She wants to scream when he asks. It makes her remember, and she can't do that right now. But she has the space, she has the resources. And he's the one to ask her. Thankfully, she doesn't have to deal with any of the planning. She just opens her chit, and the son organizes the caterers and music and flowers. 

She hates flowers; they are symbols of death. Growing life pulled out of the ground, tortured and mutilated. They are cut at the stem, the life snuffed right out. Like her. Sometimes a little bit of water can be sucked up into the stems, make them appear fresh for a few more days. But they always wilt, and then start to rot.

But the son orders the flowers and the blossoms are spread around the apartment. A single photo is placed for viewing, the only reminder she can pretend to tolerate. 

So they all gather in her crowded apartment. It shouldn’t be crowded; it’s enormous by Citadel standards. She wonders how Anderson could afford such a grand palace. She could fit her entire crew, all three of her crews, in here with room to spare. But with everyone gathered around the one tiny picture, it’s crowded. Bodies pressed close together, smelling all of the alien sweat and air. She briefly wonders how they could all be breathing the same air. Organics all evolved on different planets with different chemistry. Humans inhale oxygen, use it to pull protons ripped from glucose through a channel to create ATP which powers the body. Or are they hydrogen ions? She can never remember. If you strip an electron off a hydrogen atom, it’s called a hydrogen ion, even though all that is left is a proton. The protons are placed back into position in carbon dioxide which is expelled from the body. O2 in, CO2 out. How does everyone else do it?

Tali wears the full environmental suit. Supposedly that’s just to protect her immune system. Without it, simple one celled organisms will invade and she will have to douse herself in antibiotics. Which also doesn’t make sense, because how haven’t the quarians been swamped with antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA or C-Diff?

Kolyat is walking toward the front of the crowd now. The murmurs die down and he starts speaking with that gravelly voice. That tone that sends skitters through her stomach. But it’s different. She realizes for a split second that she’ll never hear it again -

Wait, she’s standing in front of the crowd. When did that happen? She looks up, looks out at all of the faces staring at her. Waiting for her to speak. She should open her mouth, say something. Why is she here again? Shepard glances behind her to see the picture, see the white flowers behind it.

She starts to talk. But she doesn’t recognize what comes out.

_Yit'gadal v'yit'kadash sh'mei raba_

That’s not right. What language is she speaking?

_b'al'ma di v'ra khir'utei_

How does she even know what she’s saying?

_v'yam'likh mal'khutei b'chayeikhon uv'yomeikhon_

She doesn’t know. She’s pushed the memories so far down that they shouldn’t be coming up. 

_uv'chayei d'khol beit yis'ra'eil_

But the words keep spilling out of her mouth. She can’t stop, she has to finish. She can’t leave until she finishes. Countless minutes spent running through this prayer, waiting for the food on the other side of the wall. As soon as she’s done, she can go eat the cookies and drink the juice and sneak sips of the wine and mingle with her friends...

_ba'agala uviz'man kariv v'im'ru..._

Finally, the well of forgotten words dries up and she’s left standing in front of everyone. She registers the confusion on their faces. Their translators won’t pick up that language. No one’s spoken it for decades.

Shepard stumbles back into the crowd. She waits until Kolyat walks to the front, and everyone’s attention snaps to him. They’ll leave their confused questions until after the memorial is done. She’s tuned out by now, and notices her feet moving. She’s sneaking away, walking up the stairs as quietly as she can. People must notice her, but no one tries to stop her.

She makes her way up to the office and finds the message light blinking. There are videos, she discovers. He left them for her. She clicks on the TV and her mind clamps down. 

_The sand stretches out in every direction. This isn't the warm, comforting sand of a beach. This is the dry, dead sand of a desert. The sand where water goes to die. The heat is ridiculous. That's the thought that comes to her. Not oppressive, not cruel, but ridiculous. As if she can't believe the weather would have the nerve to be so damn intolerable._

_But it is, and it's such a dry heat that it sucks the sweat right off her skin as soon as it dribbles out of her pores. And the sun is awful, too. It beats down relentlessly, trying to scorch her. Luckily for her, her skin has already been scorched and repaired so many times that she's basically immune to the cancer causing light. Well, immune because of the implants. Not because her skin has actually evolved. That would be just as ridiculous. Skin doesn't evolve, not in one generation._

_The heat must be boiling her brain. Her thoughts are circling in random tangents, flitting here and there. Why is she here? She hates the heat._

_It's not the heat that'll get you, but the humidity._

_She hates that phrase, wants to punch everyone who says it to her. When the heat is this bad, it doesn't matter what the humidity is. If anything, the lack of it makes it worse. It makes breathing almost painful, as if a single breath of air will suck every molecule of moisture straight out of her lungs._

_The irony is not lost on her._

_Shepard glances around, and sees him. And remembers why she's here. He looks so happy, standing in the desert. His eyes are closed, his arms spread, his face to the sky. He's basking in the light._

_Basking is a good word. She had a bearded dragon when she was younger that would bask under the heat lamp she had hung over its cage._

_She walks over to him, glad that she's not barefoot this time. The sand would burn, but her feet are protected by sturdy combat boots. Probably not the best shoes for desert hiking, but she'll be damned before ever going without them. She wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek into his back. He's quietly praying, thanking Arashu or Amonkira or whatever god is applicable to the moment, thanking them for bringing him here._

_What astounds her isn't that he can be praying when the heat is so ridiculous, or that he can find joy in such a dead, barren land, but how clear his breathing is. Where her breathing is labored because of just how damn HOT it is (seriously, why do people ever bother with this environment?), his is slow and steady. His heart beats so strong beneath her cheek._

_She'll gladly venture into this ridiculous, terrible desert for this. Hell, she'll set up camp and throw a bloody luau if it means he can breathe like this all the time._

_She runs her hands down his chest and feels a divot that wasn't there before. No, it's not a divot. It's a ragged hole. The fabric is torn, as if something has been shoved through it. She feels something warm and wet. Of course it's warm, considering how hot the desert is…_

_He collapses in her arms and she grunts with the effort of holding him up. Blood cascades down her arms._

_Shepard screams._

Garrus finds her sprawled out on the floor. She’s squeezing the skin on her wrist. Her jacket is rolled back to her elbow. She shouldn’t have the sleeve rolled back, everyone could see. But Garrus has already seen, already knows.

She’s been squeezing and twisting her wrist for some time now. When they were kids, they called it an indian burn. No one knew what an indian was, but everyone knew that their burns hurt. Her wrist is bruised and bloody now.

All of the guests have left. Kolyat was waiting to speak with her, but Garrus made nice words and ushered everyone out. Garrus is great like that. Always dealing with the problems Shepard can’t face. She shouldn’t have faced this memorial, but the son asked her to so she couldn’t say no.

Garrus cleans up her wrist, wraps more bandages around the oozing flesh. She is fascinated to see the blood leak through the light fabric. It’s not all red, though. Clear fluid is coming out, too. Soon it will crust over. The bandage will probably stick to the wound, and when Chakwas changes it (she’s already proven she can’t be trusted to change the wrappings herself), it’ll rip off and bleed again. Why does Garrus bother even wrapping it, her wrist? The implants will make it heal fast enough. But he can’t stand to leave her bleeding.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're here looking for the new chapter, check out chapter 5. I switched the order around.
> 
> Also this is the most fucked up chapter I've written so far. Cheers!

_She's standing in a polished metal room that stinks of antiseptic. A door clicks shut behind her. There's a wall full of beeping machines, lights flashing on and off and several monitors showing staticky sine waves. Are they…heart beats?_

_There's a bed in front of her. It's more of a platform, with bare cushions and no pillows. It's bent slightly, propping up the form stretched out across it. Her eyes widen, taking in the green form… No._

_No. Nononononono NO._

_She whirls around, scrabbling at the door. Her fingernails scrape across the metal, shrieking like chalk on a blackboard. Or maybe that's her mouth, screaming a mindless wail. She can't be here, she can't see this again! But the door won't open._

_There's a cacophony of sounds hammering at her ears, her own screaming and the beeping monitors and her nails. Her senses are overloaded, the smells and sights and sounds overwhelming her brain. She's going to pass out. She wants to pass out, except she can't because she's not actually here._

_This is a dream, a memory. If she could just wake up._

_Giving up on the door, she slams her nails down, slicing into her arm. Maybe if she can cut it open, pull out the blood and tendons, maybe she'll wake up._

_The sounds are finally broken when she hears a weak croak from the bed._

_"Siha…" Followed by a wet cough._

_The word should send flutters of warmth through her stomach. It should spread up her neck, set her cheeks aflame with a giddy glow. It doesn't._

_Shepard feels ice flooding her veins. The cold reality that she will be forced to watch this again crashes down on her. She slowly turns around, arms dropping to her sides in defeat._

_He's almost draped across the bed, no strength left in his limbs. He can barely lift his head to look at her. The life's been sucked out of him, out through the sword that dug into his chest, stealing everything from her._

_She's lost control of her own limbs, now. She's pulled forward, stretching out a hand to grasp his. Holding it tight, trembling to feel the weakness in it. He's almost gone._

_"Siha, you must promise me…" More coughing. She has to promise. He has a son, he needs her to save the galaxy because this is the galaxy that has Kolyat in it. Kolyat, the only thing that will be left when he leaves for the sea. She wants to hate them, father and son both. He knows what she's going to turn into, he did it before she ever met him. Fell into the battle sleep._

_Except it won't be battle sleep, not for her. She's already been to the sea, was there for nearly two years before Cerberus yanked her out. So she doesn't have the option of battle sleep, because once he's gone, she won't have the ability to wake back up. She'll be stuck in some sort of limbo, just waiting until she can join him._

_But she has to promise because it's the only thing he asks of her. She nods her head, which is enough of a promise for him to go to the sea content._

_The monitor flat-lines, but it's her life that ends._

Shepard wakes to feel damp sheets twisted around her tangled limbs. The metallic tang of blood assaults her senses. Her face is on fire, her fingernails aching. She lifts them to her face and squints to sees them cracked and broken, congealed blood dripping down each finger.

Shepard tries to rub her eyes with the backs of her hands, tries to clear the hazy film obscuring her vision. But that just lights her face back up on fire. And she discovers why. She's tried gouging her eyes out. 

She missed, instead digging her fingers into her cheeks. She tentatively explores the craters left by her nails, determines the extent of the damage. This isn't the first time she's woken up covered in blood. When the dreams aren't pleasant, she'll try anything to wake up out of them. She should really ask Chakwas for something to stop the dreams altogether. 

Shepard untangles herself from the twisted sheets and gets ready to sneak down to the medical bay. It's a good thing she collected enough platinum to upgrade the tech down there. She'll need significant work to hide the gashes she's carved into her face. Her crew wouldn’t be surprised to see some damage; she is fighting a war after all. But she can't let them see her like this. She came back from yesterday's mission nearly unscathed. They'll know something is wrong. And she can't have that. 

The galaxy has to think Commander Alexandra Shepard is in full control, confident in her success and ready to take on the next challenge. Allers has been relatively cooperative, skimming past the parts where her veil drops and anyone with half a brain can see that she isn't all there. And Garrus manages to fill in the rest, so anyone outside her immediate circle thinks all is well with the Butcher of Torfan. 

Oh, right. She's still that. Well, it won't be long now anyway that she has to put up with the derogatory slurs and hatred. Today she heads to the Cerberus headquarters. After that… 

It won't be long at all.


	8. Chapter 8

_She's running through a dark…forest? It's kind of a forest, but the trees are slippery. They keep sliding in and out of her focus, blurry one minute and blaring in her face the next. Blaring? Yes, the trees almost seem like they are screaming. There's a cacophony of noise, but when she tries to listen, all she hears is utter silence._

_And then the silence is broken by laughter. Yes, laughter in this nightmare of a forest. Light, carefree laughter of a child. She rounds a corner and catches a glimpse of a small figure, a silhouette that blurs into the background. Shepard tries to run faster, but it's as if she's running through molasses. No matter how hard she pumps her legs, she barely crawls forward. But the trees flash by as if she were running top speed. Nothing makes sense here._

_But still the laughter, until it cuts off and is replaced by sharp cries. She spots the figure again and recognizes the child. She saw him, all the way back on earth. She saw him crawl into a ventilation duct, and then she saw him again as he climbed aboard a shuttle. Shepard remembers that no one reached down to help the boy, almost as if they didn't see him…But then the shuttle was shot down and the boy-_

_But here he is. Standing alone among the pitch black trees. She hears his screams but his mouth isn't moving. He's not even breathing. But he stares at her and slowly blinks._

_Slowly, other voices join the screams. She recognizes Ashley Williams, the woman she left to die on Virmire. She's never felt guilty about that choice, not even when she was nestled in Kaidan's arms. But now the guilt stabs at her heart. She murdered Ashley, just one of the many people she's sacrificed along the way._

_Now she hears Mordin, singing. She loved that song, Gilbert and Sullivan. Never saw the play, but she loved hearing Mordin sing it. It was so absurd, such lighthearted fun amongst so much pain. But the singing she hears is quickly replaced with sounds of the explosion on Tuchanka. Could she have saved him?_

_Shepard comes to a stop, finally having run close enough to see the details of the child's clothing. His jacket is threadbare but not burned. It should be charred, he should be charred from the explosion that took down his shuttle. But he is whole; a sad, lonely, screaming child that doesn't move._

_It's only now that Shepard realizes it's raining. Her clothes are soaking wet, water drips from her bedraggled hair into her eyes. She has to constantly wipe the water off her face so she can keep eye contact with the boy. But she isn't cold. She isn't warm, either. She can't feel her skin, can't tell if she's even sweating under the damp clothing. She hates humidity; normally this kind of weather would have her huddled under warm blankets with-_

_She should hear him. His deep voice should have joined the cries of everyone else she's lost. But he's abandoned her in this hell, left her to face her guilt alone. What she wouldn't give to hear his voice right now. Even if it was accusing her of all of her sins, at least it could keep her company._

_A figure darker than the trees, darker than the black sky creeps toward the boy. The boy stands in a cone of light, as if heaven itself were shining down on his innocence. The figure behind him steps into the light and Shepard sees that it's him. He's silent, too. His chest is solid, no evidence of the wound. He stares at Shepard's chest, then gently lays his hands on the boy's shoulders. They turn around and disappear into the darkness._

_Shepard looks down to see blood, black as night, cascading down her chest from the ragged hole punched through her shirt. Now she feels her skin, feels the warmth as it pools between her breasts, down her waist, until it drips into the ground. And she smiles._

The dark forest brightens, and the trees fade away. She sits on the bed as she does every morning, with her arm stretched out across her knee.

The needle goes in smooth today. 

Smooth is the right word. This is a clean needle. She's seen microscopic pictures of dirty needles. How the tips curve down after each use, how they slowly turn into porcupine quills with spikes jutting out. You can't see the damage to the needle because it's too small. So you think that it's clean, that there's nothing wrong with using the same needle as the person next to you or across the seat from you. Except that microscopic lifeforms can hide between those porcupine quills and can get a free ride from one arm to another. She doesn’t want that. 

She needs a temporary fix that can last long enough for her to finish the job. Diseases that used to hop needles could take months or years to kill her, which would be fine. Except that with all of the new microbes and germs and chemicals floating around between different species sharing needles, those microbes can now take days to overcome the human immune system. 

So she needs clean needles. She couldn't exactly go through the SPECTRE requisition office for those. The Council would probably provide them, given the state of the war and her nearly limitless budget. But questions would be raised, questions she didn't want to answer. She briefly considered stealing, but she's never needed to know how. Not in the quantities she needs. Besides, C-Sec has cracked down hard on the drug trade. Needles may not be the favorite method of using Red Sand, but needles can mean other things, and she can't have it getting out that Commander Shepard needs needles. 

Needs needles. That's a fun phrase. She's never liked poetry, but alliteration can be entertaining when she's sitting on a shuttle waiting to get to the ground. Plus, needs needles isn't just alliterative; the words roll off the tongue, like they're desperate to escape her mouth. 

Needs needles. Needs needles. Needs needles. 

And then Shepard discovered that finding her needed needles was much simpler than she could have ever imagined. Chakwas spotted the marks immediately and asked her what she had been taking. It was as if the woman was telepathic. In retrospect, it was pretty easy to guess that Shepard would turn to this. Chakwas had treated him, knew how little time he had left and saw how it would devastate her. So the track marks weren't a surprise. 

What was a surprise was the box waiting on her bed the next day. A box of clean needles. And doses, neatly lined up and ready for her use. No arguments, no attempts to dissuade her. She needs needles, and Chakwas provides them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're wondering, these are the images Shepard's referring to.
> 
> http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr6u28Wit71qfuxqs.png
> 
> Seriously, don't reuse needles. It's icky. Please don't do drugs, either. Also icky.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only smutty chapter. I highly suggest just reading the italicized part. The second part is just too sad.
> 
> Porn is fun. Now I'm sad that this is the only smutty chapter. I may write more. Because I can.

_“Be alive with me tonight.”_

_It’s an awful line. She knows it as soon as she says it, but when she grabs him and kisses him, running a hand up his cheek, the line is forgotten. He tastes exactly the same, cinnamon and spice. He wraps his arms around her back, pulling her in to press against the buckles across his chest._

_She deepens the kiss, her tongue seeking out his. For something so alien, it seems so familiar. They’ve never gotten this far before. She is breathless in anticipation. He hoists her up so she can wrap her legs around his waist. He’s strong, much stronger than anyone would expect. But she knows this already. His strength has saved her countless times on the battlefield._

_Twining around each other, he carries her to the bed and reverently lays her down. But she won’t have any of that. She’s done being gentle, careful. They’re probably going to die tomorrow, and dammit, she’s going to feel him inside her before she dies._

_They tumble into the sheets together where she flips him so she’s sitting in his lap. He reaches up to grasp behind her neck, but she slaps his hands away. She’s going to be in charge for a little while._

_Shepard reaches down and grips the edge of her shirt. This is the moment she’s been scared of. He’s never been with a human before. But the sheer lust in his eyes, the way he darts his tongue out to lick his lips tells her that he wants her just as badly as she wants him. She steels herself and lifts the shirt, revealing her naked chest. Screw bras, she hates wearing them in her quarters._

_His eyes take in her breasts, and his hands stretch out to grasp her. She arches into his touch, his palms pressing down on her pert nipples. It feels glorious. It’s been so long since she’s been touched._

_He is fascinated by her, by the supple flow across her chest. He kneads and tweaks a nipple, eliciting a surprised squeak from her. He grins, and flicks a finger. But it’s not enough._

_“My turn.” She latches a finger under the first buckle, but quickly realizes the straps are too much for her in her state. The drugs are kicking in, mixing with desire so her dexterity is almost gone. He raises a scaled eyebrow, and quirks the corner of his mouth again. She watches as he debates whether to help her or sit back and watch._

_“If you don’t help, I’m grabbing a knife and cutting that thing off you.”_

_He laughs, and with a few deft movements, the garment parts. He grips the zipper and starts to slowly pull it down when she runs out of patience. Swatting his hands aside again, Shepard nearly rips it off him, revealing his naked chest._

_She sucks in a breath. He’s…_

_He’s beautiful. It’s an odd word to use, but it’s the best one for the moment. His finely muscled torso shines in the light. The black stripes just visible on his neck extend down, twisting across to join the dark red ribbing peaking out from his pants, forming a deep vee. She’s always been partial to tattoos, but this can only be described as tiger striping. Brindle? Tribe markings?_

_Beautiful._

_“Beautiful?” He asks. She said it out loud, but decides to go with it._

_“Yes, you’re beautiful, dammit. Accept the compliment.” He snorts, then sharply inhales when she runs a finger across the red ribbing._

_“Siha-” Apparently she’s found a sweet spot. She scoots back and leans down, flicking a tongue out to taste him. The word quickly elapses into a deep moan._

_Shepard runs her tongue along the ribbing, then traces one of the black stripes up his chest, swirls around a nipple (yes, apparently Drell have nipples), across the ribbing against his throat, and meets his mouth for another deep kiss. He tangles a fist into her hair and delves into her mouth, while the other hand drifts down to the top of her pants._

_Their breathing comes in short pants now, both so turned on that they don’t have time to worry about what the other will think. He snakes a hand under her pants and presses a finger against her core. She shudders, feeling her panties pushed against her. He chuckles again, feeling just how soaked she is._

_They’ve both read the booklets so kindly provided by Mordin, and she tried watching one of the videos before melting in embarrassment. She got the gist; Drell don’t get wet. So she can only imagine the delight he must feel, knowing that his work is much, much easier when it comes to her._

_It’s still not enough, though. Frustrated, Shepard pulls away and, before he can stop her or pull her back, shucks off her pants and underwear. She stands before him completely naked. He sits up, basking in the sight. He looks up to her, asking for permission with his eyes. She nods, biting her lip._

_He leans forward and grips her waist, pulling her toward him. He gently runs a hand through her soft curls, then dips down and flicks his tongue against her. Her head rolls back and she groans, thrusting into his face._

_He takes the cue and dives in, tasting and licking and probing. She lays a hand against the back of his head, urging him on. Little explosions are running up her spine, sparks that she’s never felt before._

_It’s cliche, but so true. Minute differences in his tongue are felt a hundred fold, completely different from any of her previous lovers. He strokes her until her knees tremble, until she’s shouting his name and nearly collapses as an orgasm tears through her._

_He grabs her around the waist before she collapses, and lays her across the bed. Her eyes are still clamped shut, her brain trying to claw back into her senses. It takes a few minutes of gentle kisses spread across her legs, her arms, her chest and face until she comes down and lazily opens her eyes. He kisses her on the mouth, and she tastes something new; cinnamon, spice, and her own musky scent. It’s enough for her to rally, and she pounces, pushing him back so she straddles him again._

_“Your turn.”_

_His pants are much easier than his jacket, and she quickly manages to push them down far enough to grasp his length. It’s his turn to gasp as she flicks her thumb across the tip._

_“Siha, that’s-”_

_“New rule,” she cuts in. “You get three words. Siha, yes, and no. Clear?”_

_Smirking, he nods his head. “Yes.”_

_“Good.” She runs a hand up and down his shaft, feeling the girth and- ridges? Oh yes, that’s right. Drell are ridged. She’d forgotten that little tidbit._

_His breath quickens, his eyes starting to roll back. She spreads her legs and sinks down, taking him to the hilt. They both gasp at the feeling._

_He’s_ big. _It takes some adjusting, trying to calm her muscles. She’s played with toys this big before, but rarely. She sits up a little, sliding out enough to feel the ridging. But she plants her hands on his shoulders, carefully holding her weight so she doesn’t get overwhelmed. He grips her waist again, and slowly thrusts upward, watching her face for any sign of discomfort. She nods her head, and sinks back down again. But she can tell it’s not enough for him, so she withdraws and lays down on her back, inviting him forward._

_He takes the hint and repositions so that he’s hovering over her. He lays a hand against her cheek, presses his forehead against hers, then enters her. The angle works better, and she digs her fingers against his ass, urging him faster. He withdraws, then dives back into her with a sharp thrust._

_Oh yes. This is what she wants. This will definitely work._

_She moans and cries, thrusting her hips forward to meet his strokes. They meet again and again, flesh slapping against flesh. She tightens around him, feeling the sparks start to flood her system again. Usually it takes a lot more than this for her to come, but he’s filling her so completely, so perfectly that a bone shattering orgasm tears through her again, pulling scream after scream from her. He’s not far behind, his deeper, hoarser growl following as he empties himself within her. Breathless, he rests his forehead against hers and-_

The alarm sounds, ripping Shepard from the dream. The ecstasy fades, and she feels the dampness between her legs. She screams in frustration, twisting around and pounding fists into her pillows so hard that they burst and feathers fly out.

She tears out of bed, flinging ripped pillows and blankets around her. She grabs the closest thing to her, the alarm, and hurls it across the room. It crashes into the fishtank, shattering the glass. Water pours out and splashes against the floor, carrying the flopping bodies of the fish she buys on impulse. A jellyfish gets caught on the glass and slides down the wall like sludge, arms trailing behind it. She’s not done.

Shepard flips the table, sending coffee cups crashing and shattering, little shards of ceramic skittering across the floor. She grabs the datapad and swipes it through her carefully placed models. The Normandy, a Turian cruiser, the Shadowbroker Lair, all go flying. 

Eventually, Garrus finds her calmly typing away at her datapad several hours later. She’s covered in cuts from glass shards and her room is a disaster. He doesn’t say a word, just helps her get dressed and they head out, ready for another mission.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry for the long wait. Life kind of happened. But don't worry! I'm still writing. You can still get your sadness doses here.

_She's curled up in his lap, her cheek resting on his chest. She listens to his racing heartbeat, waits for it to slow down. The sheets lay tangled about their limbs. They're both coated in sweat, breath heaving, evidence of their lovemaking. Her eyelids flutter, contentment flooding her veins. She's just starting to drift off to sleep when she sees his hand move to the tiny desk by the bed._

_He picks up a piece of metal and deftly slides a sparkling ring onto her hand splayed out across his chest. It fits perfectly, a blue gem softly glowing in the half light. Her eyes widen as she fully awakens and takes in the ring._

_It's actually glowing, a slow pulse that attunes itself to her heartbeat. She looks closer and sees silver fillagre swirling around the gem. It's…stunning._

_"I..what?" She looks up into his black eyes and sees her confusion reflected back._

_He doesn't speak for a moment. She can see him gathering his thoughts, then holds her breath as he slips into a flashback._

"Storekeeper looks flustered. The ring isn't available, he'll have to special order it.

"You know how expensive this is? Yes, I know, I reply. She is worth it."

_He closes his eyes as the memory leaves him. Shepard glances back at the ring and finally recognizes the stone. It's rakhanite, a mineral only found on the ruined Drell homeworld. It was one of the driving factors of the homeworld being over industrialized; mining the gem destroyed huge swaths of land. It's hugely expensive, the only sources being repurposed jewelry that the few Drell transported to the Hanar homeworld took with them. For him to give her a piece…_

_"It's beautiful," she breathes. And before she can think, before she realizes what it would mean, the words tumble out._

_"Marry me."_

_She's never been one for tradition. Never figured she would be asked by a man on bended knee. But his reaction is still far from what she expected. His eyes widen as he takes in the meaning of her words, then he vaults off the bed, sending sheets tumbling._

_"Siha, I-" He's at a loss for words. He glances around her quarters, desperately trying to find a way to explain himself. Her heart sinks._

_"But why?" She tries to keep the rising hysteria out of her voice. What possible reason could he have? He's basically given her an engagement ring anyway!_

_He takes a deep breath and meets her eyes. "I wouldn't leave you a widow."_

_Ah, so that's why. She nods, and crawls to the edge of the bed. She grabs him by the shoulder and roughly pulls him down for a kiss. When she pulls back to draw a breath, she whispers._

_"I'd rather be a widow than never marry you."_

The ring lies on a chain around her neck. She tried keeping it on her finger, but her glove wouldn't fit. Her chest piece didn't fit very well over the ring. The jewelry presses deep into her flesh whenever she dons her armor. But she refuses to take it off.

Shepard ducks as a chunk of concrete is hurled at her. She brings her shotgun to bear and blasts back the husk that was sneaking up on her right.

They never did get married. The ceremony could have taken three minutes, but they never even had that much time.

A ravager fires in her direction and chips away at her shields. Shepard flings a bolt of incineration at it and quickly switches to her assault rifle, popping three successive shots into the bulbous creature.

Still, she never takes the ring off. Once, after a concussive grenade hit her square in the chest, the ring implanted itself right above her collar bone. Chakwas removed the piece of jewelry, and removed the chain as well. When Shepard awoke in the med bay without her ring, she started flipping gurneys. Chakwas quickly learned never to separate Shepard from the ring.

With the ravager down, Shepard slides behind a fallen column and switched to her pistol. Peeking out from the side, she sights a banshee and takes it down before it can screech at her.

Rolling quickly to a block of concrete to her left, Shepard takes a deep breath. It's going to be a long battle.


	11. Chapter 11

_Shepard stares at the names on the wall. All of the placards, stacked up nice and neat. She reads the names and tries to remember all of the stories. Each name carries its own story. But there are so many to remember._

_This wall had so few names, before. Going through the Omega 4 Relay was supposed to be a suicide mission, but not a single name ended up on this wall afterwards. She had upgraded the Normandy, picked the right squad and tech leaders, and taken down the new reaper without a single casualty. The results were so wildly different from Torfan that she asked Chakwas to do a full psych review. But the results were green. She had changed. Because of him. Because of them. All of them. Her team, her family._

_But now, looking up at the wall. So many names._

_And they shift, too. Does anyone else notice that? When a new name is added, all of the rest change position. It takes her a little while to notice, but it's definitely happening. Perhaps it's so the names stay in alphabetical order? But it would be better to have them arranged by date._

_She watches as someone adds a new name. It's his. The placard is red hot and pulsing. It hurts her eyes to look at it. When it's up on the wall, the other placards seem to melt. She glances away, tries to blink away the brightness. When she looks back, the names have shifted again._

_Shepard looks down at her hands. She's holding another one. It needs to be added to the collection. It wants to be added. It's burning her hands, begging to be put up. Tears are streaming from her eyes, pain lancing through her as she holds on to the bit of metal. She steps forward and thrusts her hand out, slaps the placard against the cold metal of the ship. The name blazes out._

_Alexandra Shepard._

The bowl sits in front of her, steaming. The smells of the delicious contents waft toward her. She inhales, breathing in the savory sweet flavor. She's sitting in the mess with a bowl of beef brisket stew in front of her. It's her absolute favorite dish, and Gardner knows it. How he managed to whip up the recipe astounds her, but he desperately wants her to eat so he was willing to dump as many credits as it took to get a genuine, straight from the cow, brisket.

The chunks of beef swim with little bits of carrot and onion. The meat is starting to flake. She could use her spoon to break up the pieces, make them into more bite sized portions. But she doesn't need to because Gardner sliced the meat thin enough that she can fit one entire piece in her mouth at a time.

It's definitely tempting. Her mouth is even starting to water a little bit. Her stomach growls, holding its own breath in anticipation of finally having something to digest. It's been empty for a long time.

She grips the spoon and dips it into the stew. Her hand shakes as she brings the food to her mouth. Low blood sugar. But she has to drop the spoon back into the bowl before completing the journey to her mouth. Her stomach rolls and heaves. Go too long without food, and the food itself will make you nauseous.

Little drops of stew splatter out of the bowl. People glance over to look at her, and she looks back, trying to keep her face blank so they can't see the inner battle between her stomach and her brain. When she looks back, she sees that it's not brisket. Sitting in front of her is a plate of what can only be described as nutrient paste. How can they expect her to eat that?

Shepard glances toward the kitchen, and realizes Mess Sergeant Gardner isn't there. He hasn't been there for a long time. Even if he were there, how would he know how much she loves brisket? She hasn't eaten or mentioned it since she -  


Well, since Mindoir. She ate brisket on Mindoir, but not here, in this lifetime. In this universe, they're low on supplies and the crew has been reduced to eating whatever they can scrape together. Tali had squirted something on a plate and put it in front of her, nearly demanding that Shepard shove it down.

Shepard glances around again. Tali's gone. She left Shepard to her meal. So Shepard stares back at her plate and contemplates following Tali's orders.

Contemplate contains the word plate. Contemplate. Plate. Maybe she can hide the food within the word, shove it in that little space instead of choking it down to where her stomach will just toss it back out. The more Shepard thinks about it, the more her stomach revolts. 

She stands up shakily, trying her best not to scuff the chair on the floor. She dumps the plate in the trash and heads to the bathroom.

Head. It's called the head on a ship. She heads to the head, and pushes open the door to a stall. She kneels down, bracing herself over the toilet. She wants to vomit, wants to push out everything she can so she can stay as empty as she feels. But there's nothing there. Eventually her knees start to cramp, and Shepard is forced to stand back up and admit defeat.

On her way back to her quarters, Chakwas clamps a hand on her arm and drags her into the med bay. She's forced down into a chair, and Chakwas yanks the sleeve of her jacket up past her elbow. Chakwas doesn't even blink when she sees the mess Shepard has made of it. The doctor pats the inside of her arm with three fingers, trying to find a vein Shepard hasn't blown. Finally giving up, Chakwas sticks the needle in her hand, switches it out for the IV drip, and slaps a piece of medical tape over it.

The IV bag pumps Shepard full of enough nutrients to keep the Savior of the Citadel from collapsing. 

"Don't touch it." That's it. That's all Chakwas says before leaving Shepard alone in the chair. She even glares at her a little, an extra warning that Shepard must comply. This is the woman keeping her stocked with illegal narcotics. Shepard won't cross her.

It's been like this for months now. Occasionally, Shepard can choke down a few bites of what passes for real food. Usually, she has to be force fed through an IV. She wears extra baggy clothes so no one can see her hip bone jutting out through the skin, or the sag in her breasts, all of the plump fat having been gobbled up by her starved cells. This is a body that no one would want.

But there's no one left who would want it. She made sure of that when Kaidan threw himself in front of Councilman Udina. One bullet took out the man she once loved.

Finally, the bag is empty. Chakwas bustles back out, pulls out the drip, and sends Shepard on her way. And waits to repeat the process the next time Shepard starves herself to the brink of collapse.

So, tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else notice that the names on the victim's wall totally switch order? I think it's done so they're always in alphabetical order, but I found it really weird how every time I looked, each name was somewhere else.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close. So close now to the end game. The aftermath is still to come, though. There's still a lot more fucked up Shepard to digest, so hang in there.

_The helmet rests heavily in her hands. She stares down into its depths and listens to the rustling of the dogtags as she shakes it a little. Shepard’s just returned from Alchera. Her grave. Her armor, sitting in a heap in the corner, still stinks of the planet. It’s seeped through into her skin, her hair. She is a walking memorial to that mausoleum._

_Her attention is sucked into the helmet. Her very existence can be pinpointed as if concentrated into a flame, but not within the warm blue flickering depths. The cold, empty stench of sweat, gun oil, and death. Why did she bring it back? Why did she go in the first place? The Alliance wanted her to place a memorial for the lost crewmembers and the SR-1. Her failure. So why had she gone alone? Or gone at all?_

_The corpses had all frozen in the snow. The bridge had splintered and separated from the rest of the ship. Broken reminders that she had lost. But it isn’t about her. Her guilt isn’t all about her death. Her agony is so selfish, but as she tries to remind herself that others had suffered, too, all she can remember is the hiss of air escaping from her suit and the heavy weight on her chest as she suffocated._

_So did they. Every one of those corpses. Or maybe they were already dead before they lost air. That would have been better. No gasping for breath. Just blunt trauma to the head. They didn’t have one of these, she thinks, as she shakes the helmet in her hand and hears the -tink tink- of each tag._

_Garrus and Tali had wanted to go with her. She’s a dumbass. Alchera had been her grave but she should never have gone alone. Garrus and Tali had been there and she should have taken them with her. Instead she had claimed she was ready to face it alone. And now she can’t get off this bed and can’t stop staring at the helmet. It’s like there’s a vice pinning her to this spot. How long has she been sitting here? A minute? Ten? An hour?_

_Her thoughts start to circle around each other. Her breath quickens and a weight settles on her chest. Her shoulders start to shake and she starts breathing in quick pants. A flash of heat spreads from her belly through her chest and up her neck. This is the beginning of a panic attack and Shepard knows from experience that she doesn’t have the power to stop it on her own. Pretty soon she’s going to be sprawled out on the bed screaming._

_The door swishes open and her head snaps up. He walks through and immediately assesses the situation. He rushes forward and gently pries the helmet from her grip, tossing it aside. Still in the wild throes of a panic attack, he stands her on her feet, strips her, and carries her to the shower. She has just enough presence of mind to say “Humidity.” He tells her not to worry and turns on the water. It’s freezing cold._

_The cold water is enough of a shock to her system that she snaps out of the panic attack. He steadies her by gripping her shoulders and forces her to focus on his face. As her breathing relaxes, she slowly blinks and concentrates on the comforting, dark depths of his eyes. That’s when he flips the temperature gauge on the shower and sets it to nearly scalding. Shepard cries out and twitches in his grasp, but accepts his ministrations as he soaps her up and washes her from head to toe. It serves to wipe the acrid smell of Alchera from her. The heat sears the feelings of failure from her system and when he finally turns off the water, she steps from the shower feeling nearly empty and free._

_She’s surprised when he then tosses her in the bed, but the shower is only half of what she needs. He makes love to her roughly, all teeth and nails. As he drives himself within her, Shepard feels alive. Her sharp cries and his deep moans ring out together, a chorus of living, breathing **life.** They make love as if there’s no tomorrow, because very soon, there won’t be a tomorrow. But as he bites her neck and she digs her nails into his back, for a brief moment they don’t care. They become lost within each other and the darkness in the galaxy is driven away._

_Later, as Shepard drifts off to sleep, he picks up the helmet and the dogtags and dumps them down the trash chute. Let her malleable human memory remember today for something other than the stench of her grave. His eidetic memory will remember enough for the both of them._

She falls into the rhythm of the battle so easily. She and her crew have plowed through the Cerberus troops with almost no resistance. There is one dicey moment where Garrus's gun runs out of clips and he has to scramble amidst the fire to find more. But once he slaps the clips back into his rifle, they form the unstoppable machine again. Kaidan's biotic attacks take down enemy defenses, her incineration destroys shields, and Garrus's pinpoint shooting takes them out with one shot to the head.

This is why so few people know anything is wrong. When the mission starts, when the shuttle lands and she jumps out, all thoughts and memories of times previous fade away and Commander Shepard is the weapon everyone needs her to be.

It's been like this since the beginning, since she lost herself. Thessia had been devastating, but they had picked themselves back up and kept fighting. One victory after another. 

Now, she's finally picked Leng's trail back up and is forced to face Horizon once again.

It all ended on Horizon. Or started, depending on how she looks at it. If she had time, if she recognized the sense of irony, she might see guilt and regret splashed across Kaidan's face. And in a parallel universe, she might even see hope. Hope that now that she is alone and ruined, he can stride in and pick up the pieces.

But Shepard is too focused on the mission to acknowledge those thoughts. Kaidan is here for his biotics. Garrus is here because she can't do this without him. He will always carry a piece of her soul, the only part of her that will survive.

She slides around a Guardian's shield and slams her omniblade into his side. He grunts, but the cybernetics in his body won't let him shout or plea for mercy. This isn't a human being anymore.

Flipping around, Shepard raises her rifle to her shoulder and lets off three rounds, which crack through a Fenris mech's faceplate. She tears a grenade from her belt and tosses it to Garrus, who throws it around a corner to send four more soldiers to hell.

They continue on further into the facility, working like a well-oiled machine. Shepard, Garrus, Kaidan. It's the team she came to rely on while fighting Saren. She defeated Sovereign with these men behind her back.

Eventually, they run out of enemies to shoot. Miranda is here, shouting for help. How did she get here? The last Shepard saw of that perfect ass squeezed into spandex, she was running away from The Illusive Man and hiding on the Citadel. She keeps running into all of her old squadmates. It's almost as if there is some creator who has been purposely putting them in her path, to tie up any loose ends from previous missions. Just last week, she ran into Jacob Taylor on some random backwater planet so she could rescue him. The week before that, Kasumi just happened to pop up just in time to help her save valuable data. Here's Miranda and yet again, someone needs saving.

And that's how she meets Henry Lawson. Under normal circumstances, she would be disgusted. The horrors this man has unleashed on the galaxy place him on a special pedestal, one reserved for the very worst of humanity.

Except that, within the last three years, she has put so many people up on that pedestal. It is so crowded that any jostling will knock people off. Henry Lawson is a monster, but she's become numb to monsters. And sometimes, she even feels like she belongs up there, too.

The specific details are lost to her. When she's in the battle rhythm, the words leave her mouth without her recognizing them. Everything is so finely filtered that when she reflects on it later, she finds she can't even remember who fires the killing shot. But someone does shoot, and Shepard is able to add Oriana to the growing list of people she's saved. If only the other list, the one posted on the Normandy, isn't even longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I kind of developed a panic disorder last year, and you know how everyone describes panic attacks as if an elephant were sitting on your chest? That's not what happens to me. I can force myself to breath normally, but I can't make myself do it for more than one or two breaths because I know that I'll just keep panicking afterwards. The only way I've found to be able to stop is if someone else snaps me out of it. It's really not a fun time.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the really short chapter. It's necessary to build up for the next one, which is a doozy. We're getting close!

_She stands with her arms resting on the railing, staring out at her ship. The curves and shining metal look beautiful in the morning light. Her Normandy is stunning. Shepard watches as one by one, her hung over crew stumble toward it, emptying out of her apartment. She can still hear the pulsing beats of the music pounding in her head, the last vestiges of the epic party she hosted the night before. Every one of her crew is going to be nursing one hell of a headache today. Well, maybe not Samara. She didn’t seem to do much more than meditate. Shepard herself…_

_She tried to relax. Enough people pushed drinks on her. But the first shot she threw back burned so badly in her throat that it was all she could do to keep it down. She’s had an odd relationship with her stomach for the last few months. It seems to have a mind of its own, deciding randomly what will be accepted and what won’t. Alcohol very clearly is not. So Shepard faked a few more shots and then pretended to mingle for a bit, and then extricated herself from the party as best she could and retreated into her bedroom._

_Thankfully, by then enough people were drunk that few noticed her absence. Let them party, she had thought. The crew needed to unwind. Who was she to deny them a few precious moments of joy? Let each of them find whatever happiness was left in this empty galaxy before sending them to their almost certain deaths. What did it matter that she had spent the rest of the night lying in bed reciting as many numbers of the Fibonacci Sequence as she could calculate?_

_That’s become her new ritual. She couldn’t take her normal dose and risk the rest of the crew discovering her collapsed in bed with an elastic band wrapped around her upper arm. So on nights when she can’t drug herself into oblivion, she recites sequences of numbers. Sometimes it’s Fibonacci numbers. Sometimes it’s Pi. Sometimes it’s squares. One night, she just started at one and counted as high as she could before her mind drifted off and she was forced to start back at one._

_Joker stops by and says something about the party. She nods, pretending to hear. The rest of the crew walks up the ramp to the Normandy and she starts counting again. One. One. Two. Three. Five. Eight. She gets up to 55 when she hears a voice in her head._

_“Siha.” Her eyes widen._

_“I am glad you were able to take time to celebrate. You deserve it.”_

_She whispers. “I wish you could have been here with me.”_

_“I am always with you, Siha. I would not trade the time I had with you for anything. It was a good fight.”_

_“A great fight.”_

_“Then go and finish it. And when you go to the sea, I will be waiting for you at the shore.”_

_She feels the light brush of his hand on her shoulder._

_Shepard whips around, trying to catch him in her peripheral vision. But he vanishes._

_There’s a pressure in her head. It builds until she hears a squeal. It increases in volume until it’s all she can hear, like the lid on a trash can is pulled off at the wrong angle, metal scraping on metal. The Reapers are in her head and the sound blankets out everything else. She collapses on the ground, crying out in pain._

_Blood drips from her nose, her ears. The pressure is so intense that it feels like her head is going to split open. It builds and builds until she can’t breathe and her vision goes black._

Miranda's data proves invaluable. 

For once, the Alliance actually stands behind her. She works with Admiral Hackett, coordinates ship movements and trajectories like she's practiced nearly every night in her quarters. Instead of resting, instead of allowing her body to heal from the massive trauma she inflicts on it every day, she would rather spend her time staring at numbers scrolling across her screen. And it finally pays off.

Shepard finally gets to kill him. She's dreamt of this moment ever since-

She slides her omniblade into his chest and rips it out. Blood drenches the glassy floor. In her dreams, it's circuitry. She pretends he's not human anymore, isn't part of the same species as her. But this isn't a dream. For one sweet, clear moment, she knows for a certainty that this is real. Blood and guts spill out, pool around her feet. She smells the putrid stench of death, inhales deep and enjoys it. She is the bringer of death, the master.

And in a flash, that moment is over and she returns to the fog of the battle. The satisfaction is so fleeting that it may as well be a dream. When she wakes up in the morning, she'll feel just as hollow.

Especially since The Illusive Man escapes. Or maybe he was never here to begin with. They ransack the rooms, pull every shred of data they can from the computers. EDI runs all of her subroutines and tries to hijack the Cerberus network. And what they find chills them all to the bone. Or circuit board, in EDI's case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that the inspiration for the horrible "Reaper squeal" was when sound developer Mike Kent pulled the lid off of a trash can. The scraping sound was so ear wrenching that he immediately ran to get his recording equipment.
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/masseffect/comments/4cgwfa/did_you_know_the_sound_of_the_reapers_are_from_a/


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So very close now.

_It's not a geth ship._

_The Normandy has been scouring the stars, searching for pockets of geth movement. At least, that's the official story. The Alliance refuses to accept that they should be on the lookout for Reaper activity. The Council, at least, owes them that much. But instead, she's been mothballed and sent on useless missions to eradicate the only threat anyone wants to acknowledge._

_So when they come across a foreign ship, reports are sent back that they've encountered the geth. But it only takes a few moments for everyone onboard to realize this isn't a geth ship. The exterior is grooved and pitted, appearing more like a termite colony than the smooth, bulbous geth architecture they should expect._

_And the weaponry far advances that of the geth. Energy weapons lance out, strike the Normandy. Their energy shields cannot hold back the terrible heat, and it slices through her ship like a hot knife through butter. Bulkheads collapse, air vents out. Explosions echo down every hallway._

_Shepard closes her visor and prepares to move through the new vacuum. People flee for the escape pods in chaotic surges. Pandemonium erupts on the bridge as a structural beam slams down across the CIC. Joker refuses to budge, still convinced that he can save the ship. She is forced to double back, force her way against the surge of the crowd and avoid sparking cables jutting from the ceiling._

_She wants to scream and yell, smack Joker in the jaw for risking more lives. But she doesn't have the time, needs to keep pressing forward so she can haul his broken ass away from his beloved control panels and toss him like a ragdoll into an escape pod. The jerking of the ship has already rendered him incapable of walking, so she has to toss an arm across her shoulder and half help, half carry him away._

_Amidst all of the muffled screaming, Shepard passes Kaidan in the hallway. He's trying to play the hero, trying to herd people toward safety. They exchange a glance, a grim determination that they'll see this through. They've faced worse situations than this. The image of Sovereign crouched on the Council tower flashes through her mind. If she can face down the Reaper flag ship, she can get her crew out of this mess._

_Shepard reaches the last escape pod and tosses Joker inside. He lands in a heap with a mouthful of curse words, but he's safely inside. She glances around and sees Kaidan headed back into the belly of the ship, and shouts at him to stop. What is he doing? Doesn't he know he has to get out alive?_

_She has to grab him by the shoulder and forcibly turn him around. They argue for a few precious seconds. He wants to save more people, but there's no one left to save. If he doesn't leave now, she'll lose him along with her ship. Running out of time, Shepard shoves Kaidan into the drop ship and prepares to haul herself inside._

_An explosion rips through the ship, and her grip loosens on the door. Scrambling, she tries to find a purchase but is flung away. Her back slams into a mesh of cabling, which gives way to suck her out of the ship completely. She enters a frenzied spin, everything in front of her flipping around. She attempts to right herself, but with no focal point, everything blurs together. She doesn't even notice at first that the explosion ripped a hole in her armor, and precious oxygen is leaking out._

_Before she slips into unconsciousness, before it even clicks in her mind that she's about to die, she sees one final glimpse of the wreckage. The drop ship disengages and safely escapes, but there's one figure left on the Normandy, hands clasped behind its back, staring at her._

_It's him. He's going to watch her die._

_Her view flips again, and she sees the planet looming toward her, growing bigger and bigger. Her eyesight narrows to a pinpoint, then she loses consciousness and fades into the blackness._

He's taken it to Earth. Somehow, The Illusive Man discovered the Prothean VI's secret, and now the Reapers know, too. The Citadel, the center of galactic civilization, the backdoor that almost saw them slaughtered a few years ago, is the weapon they've been trying to build. And the Reapers have it.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that they'd take it to Earth. Why not one of the planets they've completely conquered? Why not hide it from them, instead of planting it above the planet first and foremost in her mind?

Something tickles at the back of her brain. Something that lets her know that something isn't quite right.

And then the Normandy lands and drops her off in London. Big Ben towers over her, dwarfs her. Parliament shares the skyline, along with the Eye. Why does she know all of these monuments when she's never been here before? There are so many things she knows but shouldn't. And things she should know but doesn't. Her brain isn't working right. It hasn't been ever since she woke up on that Cerberus table, but now there's an incessant buzzing that's making her eye twitch. She unholsters her rifle and slaps a new heat sink into the barrel. The simple act pulls her back into battle focus.

Shepard should say her goodbyes. This is very likely going to be her end. She's been so looking forward to it, but she should take a few moments and tie up any loose ends with her comrades. She tries, with Liara. But she can't form her mouth around the right words. How do you say goodbye to someone who hopes and prays that it won't be goodbye? Liara still believes it's possible. The young asari, even when she slipped on the mantle of Shadowbroker, has always kept her positivity. She tried to shed that character, to slip into the harsh role of galactic gangster. But it didn't work. She'll always be the young, naïve asari maiden. She's so blinded by Shepard's continuing reputation that she hasn't seen any of what's been on display. So Shepard mumbles a few placating words and moves on.

She tries doing the same with everyone else. Kasumi taps into her mic and chirps some nonsensical words of praise. Jack punches her in the arm. Zaeed growls and nods his head. Javik thanks her again for the opportunity to take revenge on the Reapers. On and on, around the circle. She's amassed quite a crew over the years.

She doesn't have to say anything to Tali or Garrus, though. She gives them time to share their own heartfelt encouragement, but they part, holding hands, waiting for her to give them orders. Shepard doesn't have to try to reassure them. They know how this is going to end.

And Anderson…Oh, what she wants so bad to say to Anderson. The man who rescued her from Mindoir. Came the closest anyone has ever come to knowing the real her, the one she left behind in the ashes. Through all of her career, insane assignments and countless suicide missions that she still survived, he's been there. She opens her mouth and nothing comes out. But like Tali and Garrus, she doesn't have to say anything after all. Anderson wraps her in his arms and holds her for just a brief second, long enough to make her feel like a lost and found sixteen year old again. And then it's over and she steps back. They readjust their armor and guns, try to forget what they've meant to each other for long enough that they can get this done.

The mission is simple. The Reapers have a transport beam that she needs to reach. Shepard needs to get up onto the Citadel and set off the Catalyst. How she's going to do that, no one knows. There's no schematic or Standard Operating Procedure for an ancient weapon that's taken at least six or seven cycles of the most advanced technology in the galaxy to put together. So hopefully she'll know it when she sees it?

Shepard takes Garrus and Kaidan with her. The battle down the field is a clusterfuck filled with burned out cars, husks, brutes, cannibals - the damn near whole Reaper army. Chunks of concrete go airborne in the explosions. The three of them fight to the point of bloodiness. Just as they near the beam, Shepard realizes that she’s about to lose her team and calls in for evac. The Normandy flies down and she sends Garrus and Kaidan back.

      That _really_ doesn’t make any sense. Debris fills the air and yet Joker lands the Normandy in the middle of a battle field?

As the Normandy flies off, Shepard pushes forward. Anderson radios in and says he’s about to reach the beam. She aims for a marauder and a slice of energy strikes down, knocking her unconscious.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOPS. *Waves hands in the air* Pretend you didn't see that.
> 
> Don't know what I'm talking about? Good.
> 
> For those of you who do, I accidentally uploaded the wrong chapter. This is the right chapter 15. The other one will be up asap.

_Nihlus_

_Beneziah_

_Ashley_

_Saren_

_Pressly_

_Kelly_

_Legion_

_Mordin_

_Rila_

_The boy_

_Anderson_

_Jack Harper_

_Cortez_

_…You_

There's a loud buzzing in my head. It threatens to overwhelm me, overpower my senses. I close my eyes and grind my teeth. The past hour has been a complete blur. Anderson. The Illusive Man. Hackett telling me something doesn’t work before communication cut out. I concentrate on breathing with my diaphragm and force the buzzing from my body. Slowly the chaos ebbs away into silence. When I open my eyes, I see him.

It's the boy. The one I saw die back on Earth. The one I've seen in my dreams. He stares at me. What does he see? I look down to where I have a hand pressed against my side, blood seeping through my fingers.

There's the pain. I hadn't noticed it before, but now it lances through me. There was a gun, someone pulled the trigger. A loud bang echoes in my head. I pulled it. But who did I shoot? The pain continues to course through me while the boy stares.

My arm, the one laying lifeless against my side, is burned down to the bone. I can see the charred remains of my skin. But there should be circuitry, shouldn't there? The Cerberus implants run deep, and deep cuts can expose the wires. But through the scorched flesh, I just see bone. The armor has been blasted away.

I lift my hand from my side and stare at it. There's a ring. It's blue and it flashes sluggishly. I can hear my heartbeat slowly thudding in my ears and I realize the ring is flashing in harmony with my heart as it struggles to keep me conscious. But that's not right. Where's my glove?

"You must choose."

The boy speaks, but his voice is odd. I never heard him speak before. I hear my own voice buried deep within the chorus. It echoes through the chamber, mixed with other voices.

I look at the three choices laid before me. The boy explained them. Control, synthesis, destroy. The choice is obvious; create a world where synthetic and organic live in harmony and become one.

I hold my hand up in front of my face and stare at the ring. Before my eyes, it flashes brighter and brighter, the blue light enveloping my hand. The light travels down my arm and to my side. The pain eases and the blood stops. I hold up my dead arm and the flesh knits itself back together. No circuitry, only flesh. I am becoming whole. And the answer comes to me clear as day.

Why am I here?

I'm not.

Who am I?

I'm Commander Alexandra Goddamn Shepard. I'm the first human Spectre. I'm the Savior of the Citadel. I'm even the Butcher of Torfan. I’m a Warrior Angel of the Goddess Arashu. Fierce in Wrath, a Tenacious Protector.

_And none of this is real._

I pull reality out of the indoctrination and stare through the boy. Keeping my eye on the ring, I aim my pistol at the machinery behind his head and I pull the trigger. I run forward and hear his voice change. Harbinger screams at me and I keep running, shooting.

Shooting.

_Shooting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The list is not exhaustive. Just because someone's name isn't on the list does not mean they survived.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The beginning of the end. Part 1 of 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this looks familiar, it's because I accidentally uploaded it instead of what was supposed to be chapter 15. So please go check out what is now chapter 15! Sorry for the mixup.

I was right.

I was right about the doctors. I was right about the hospital. I was right about the Citadel and the boy and the Reapers.

I lie in the hospital, stretched out on the bed with a variety of lines hooked up to my arm. The burn goes down to the bone. The doctors have tried skin grafts, but they haven't found the right material. The implants keep rejecting everything, so for right now they are trying to stretch the existing flesh to cover the worst of the burn.

Wrex was the one to find me. I was buried in the rubble, a marauder crushed beneath me. One of my lungs was lacerated beyond repair and I had been breathing blood. Wrex pulled me from the debris, thinking I was dead. But The Illusive Man's unintended revenge outlived him. The damn implants kept me going long enough for them to bring me here.

I can't move. The doctors don't think I have any sensory control. And in truth, I don't; except I know what's going on around me. It's hard to explain. I can't see, can't move my body at all. But I know what happens to me. I'm still powerless to stop them.

They've given me a neural block in the neck, so I don't feel any pain. It must be excruciating; when I reached the Reaper beam, I was hit with a mass of concrete. No one is exactly sure what happened. I remember the marauder shooting at me, and I remember the burns. But everything else is blackness.

Except for the child. I can still hear Harbinger in my head, feel the tendrils of his control leaving me. The suffocating indoctrination finally lifting and leaving me. Leaving me feeling empty and hollow but in control.

Hackett's official report is that Anderson made it up to the Citadel and set off the Catalyst. He received one garbled message about confronting The Illusive Man, and then lost contact. The Citadel is intact, but the Relays were damaged. Repairs are currently underway to bring them back to working order. Harbinger lied; the geth and EDI are fine. The Normandy is missing.

When Wrex found me, my glove was missing and I was clutching the ring. He doesn't understand most human customs, but he knew enough to place it on my finger. When the doctors attempted to remove it, he let them know what he would remove if they ever tried again. I can feel it on my hand, resting against the blankets. The soft glow of the stone hums along with the machines in the room.

*****************************

Days go by before they’ll let anyone visit me. At least, I think it’s days. Maybe it's weeks. Or months. Minutes? Days. I have a hard time keeping track of time.

My first visitor is Wrex, because of course he is. I hear him shouting from the hallway, demanding to be allowed entry. He nearly knocks over the security guards and busts through the door to stand over my bed. And then he just stares.

He sees my broken body, the wreck that I’ve become. Without my armor, I don’t look like much. The doctors have done as much as they can to repair me. Time has to do the rest. They grew me a new lung and found the right material to give me a skin transplant so at least I don’t look like a horror. But this isn’t the body of Commander Alexandra Shepard anymore.

And for Wrex, that’s ok. He takes my hand and says he understands. He’s been more than a crewmate, more than a friend. Wrex has been like a brother to me, and I don’t need to explain anything to him. He doesn’t beg me to hold on, doesn’t plead with his gods that I live. He simply accepts what I am and thanks me for the time we’ve had.

When he goes to leave he tells me I’m an honorary Krogan. I try to shout that I love him. But I can’t.

It’s alright, though. Wrex already knows.

“Shepard.”

_Wrex._

*****************************

My room starts filling with flowers. It is a slow process, at first. Only one or two vases. But then people start sending me teddy bears with little hearts or balloons with kitchy phrases. "Get better soon." "We love you beary much." The nursing staff has to sort through them. Most of them get thrown out because they simply won't fit in the room.

It becomes a battle of wills, though the doctors don't realize it.

My major injuries have healed. My body accepted the new lung. I am incapable of screaming at the irony. My arm, though covered in scar tissue, is almost completely restored. I'm back to a healthy body weight. The toxins have been flushed from my system. The bones knit back together. Scans indicate no serious brain damage.

So why don't I wake up? The question is asked constantly. Doctor after doctor files through and scratches notation on their clipboard. No one can figure it out. Commander Shepard should be alert and awake. Yet she continues to rest, sunk deep in a coma.

No one takes into account what Commander Shepard wants. I had it very clearly written out in my living will, but no one bothers referencing it. I suspect someone destroyed the document as soon as it was found. As I said, I was right.

So we battle it out, will against will. Doctors and reporters and the Alliance and the Council. An endless loop, around and around and around.

I wonder where Garrus is?

*****************************

Tali visits me. She slumps down in a chair, her usual confidence dragged down by stress. The Normandy is missing, lost on the wrong side of a broken relay. With it is Garrus and most of the crew, alive. At least, as far as we know. Tali needs comfort, and usually I would be the one to provide it. She takes my hand and hunches over, the sound of tears edging her voice.

Out of the blue, Tali admits she'd be willing to do it. But Garrus needs to say goodbye. And she’s right. If there’s no Shepard without Vakarian, how can there be Vakarian without Shepard? This is something that Garrus needs to work out before I go, and Tali can’t get meddle with that.

Tali picked up more than I'd thought.

After some time, I guess she draws the comfort she needs. She sets my hand down at my side and walks out without a second glance.

So I need to wait. I can wait. I’ve been waiting all this time. What’s a little longer?

*****************************

The next day, Kaidan visits me.

Kaidan doesn’t hesitate before grabbing my hand. He holds the empty one, the one without the ring. He doesn’t even glance at the other one.

He calls me Alex. Has he ever done that before? Has anyone called me Alex before? I think Anderson may have when I was younger, but ever since I joined the Alliance, I’ve been Shepard. Does this mean…

Yep. Kaidan starts using the F word. _Future._ Our future. I need to pull through because we have a bright and beautiful future together. All of the hardships we’ve faced can be forgotten, put behind us. All will be for the good if I can Just. Wake. Up!

Meanwhile, Kaidan completely ignores the blue ring on my finger that very clearly looks like an engagement ring. He also completely ignores the last year plus of my service history and every single media outlet that couldn’t keep quiet about Commander Shepard’s intriguing new boy toy. Because that’s Kaidan. Hopelessly and unrealistically optimistic.

Kaidan is blind.

*****************************

James has to duck significantly to avoid hitting his horns on the lintel, and even then discovers that he can’t fit them horizontally through the door. He backs up and turns sideways, then sidles through.

“Krem!” He calls out. He looks at the chair, but it would collapse under his massive bulk. Instead, he stands over the hospital bed and looks down at me.

“The other Chargers can’t wait for you to get back in the action. We already have a full schedule of missions waiting for us.”

It’s likely that we’re heading to Tevinter sometime in the near future. The Iron Bull misses Dorian something fierce. My injuries have laid us up for much longer than we had anticipated and everyone tends to get pretty antsy when we’re stuck in one spot for too long. I still can’t figure out how anyone tolerated staying around Skyhold for all those years! Granted, it probably helped that everyone found someone to shack up with. I wonder if Maryden is still waiting for me…

My hands feel numb. It starts as a tingle, as if they are falling asleep. It intensifies until the buzzing races up my arms. The ring flashes brighter and brighter, then fades in intensity. My feet freeze, along with my legs. My breathing slows. A weight presses on my chest. My thoughts g....r...o.....w s....o..f......t G....a.........r.....u...s.....s i.....s t..........h..............i.......s i..................t.....?


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 of 2. What we've all been waiting for.

I lay in the inky darkness. I hear nothing. I feel nothing. I am nothing. I float while time passes by.

*****************************

It takes a long time before I recognize anything. Sometimes I can tell the room is full of doctors. The numbers dwindle until only machines are left. Eventually, some information filters in and I’m able to work out what happened.

It was Miranda. Of all the people I thought would come through, it was Miranda who tried. Leave it to her to try to take control of a bad situation. She injected something into my IV that nearly killed me. It’s been several weeks and the doctors have been working around the clock to pull me back from the brink. They won’t know how much damage has actually been done until I wake up and they can test my full cognitive abilities.

Right.

Miranda, for her part, is in jail. Security outside my door has been increased to the point where they won’t let anyone visit me. So I continue to float. And think. And count.

*****************************

One one two three five eight thirteen twenty one thirty four fifty five eighty nine one hundred forty four two hundred thirty three three hundred seventy seven six hundred ten nine hundred eighty seven fifteen hundred wait no that’s not the proper way to write numbers one thousand five hundred ninety seven two thousand five hundred eighty three wait that’s wrong two thousand five hundred eighty four four thousand two hundred shit I lost my place.

One two four nine sixteen twenty five thirty six forty nine sixty four-

Is the world the oroboros, the snake eating itself in an endless loop, over and over again?

If a snake eats itself, is it 100% snake, or 0% snake? But the galaxy can’t be a perpetual motion machine because that assumes 100% efficiency, which is impossible to achieve because of the second law of thermodynamics. Mainly, entropy. Even in the vacuum of space, there’s around 3 kelvin cosmic microwave background. Using living beings as batteries is a really dumb concept. We make terrible batteries. Or a food source.

I wonder where Garrus is?

*****************************

It doesn’t take long before The Shadow Broker pulls some strings and security lets Liara through.

I think the doctors are hoping she can establish a mental link and determine if there’s any brain damage. They’re all human doctors so they probably don’t understand the true ability of the asari to form these mental links. Then again, I don’t, either. But Liara helped me understand the Prothean Beacon in the past, so she gives it a try.

When I feel her featherlike touch in my mind, I let her see the full range of my despair. All of the hurt and anger, depression and pain that I’ve been holding back ever since-

It’s so much that Liara is forced back and staggers in real agony. She clutches her head and cries out. Eventually, she straightens and hardens her resolve.

This is The Shadow Broker. This is not the shy asari maiden I rescued from Therum. This isn’t even the ruthless intelligence broker from Illium. She stares down at me, ice dripping from her voice.

“I refuse to take no for an answer, Shepard. You _will_ survive.”

I mourn for Liara T’Soni, the young, sweet archeologist. Another victim of the Reaper War. 

Might as well add her name to the wall, too.

*****************************

He's dressed in a C-Sec uniform, all prim and proper. I vaguely remember seeing a message from him, that he had signed up as soon as his community service was done. Bailey did me a favor, I think, pulling his application to the top.

He doesn't say much. There isn't much to say. I want to tell him that I would have loved him, would have adopted him if he'd let me. I could never have replaced his mother, but from an economic and political standpoint, he would have been in a powerful position. Maybe that wouldn't have mattered to him. I'll never know.

Kolyat pulls out a prayer book and says a few prayers. I don't have my translator with me, so I'm not sure what he's saying. But I can tell from his voice that he isn't holding out hope. He's not depressed, either, which is odd. He suddenly breaks out of the prayers.

“You made him a better person. You made _me_ a better person. Thank you for that.”

He closes the prayer book, touches my arm, and walks out.

Assuming the assholes who destroyed my living will didn't destroy everything, he's going to have a nice surprise waiting for him once this is done. I've left him the Citadel apartment that Anderson gave me. That thing cost a fortune, and it'll be his. Someday. Whenever I leave here.

I saved it all for him. And I made damn sure he will never know.

*****************************

Garrus walks through the door and I notice there’s an odd spring to his step. He taps the monitor that displays my heart rate and consults his omnitool. He doesn’t even glance down at me, just adjusts a few things with the wires.

His armor is scuffed and dingy. He hasn’t had time to repair it or even shower, from the looks of things. There’s an odd smell like he just stepped off the ship. Gun oil and dust. The Normandy’s been missing for a few months now and I wonder if he’s even bothered to check in with the Turian Primarch before coming to the hospital.

When he’s done adjusting whatever it is he’s looking at, he stops by the bed and acknowledges that he’s not alone in the room. And that’s when he breaks.

“Sorry I took so long.” He chokes out the words and collapses into the chair. “Spirits, Shepard, I knew this would be hard, but I didn’t think…it doesn’t matter. I said I would do it. You’re the one who’s good at speeches, not me. All I can say is…”

He has to stop, catch his breath. He takes my hand with one claw and holds it to his chest.  
“If there’s a bar wherever you’re going…save me a seat.”

He taps his omnitool with his free hand and the monitor goes blank. I feel an emptiness in my mind. It’s not the heaviness I felt before, the cold blackness from Miranda’s treatment. It’s calming and soothing and I nod off as if in sleep. The blue ring on my finger fades in intensity until it’s just a normal stone.

I can hear a quiet hum, just on the edge of my range. I think it’s coming from Garrus. With the last of my strength, I reach out, tighten my grip, and squeeze his hand.

*****************************

_I stand in knee deep waves. The water is warm and crystal blue, the kind of blue you only see down near the equator. This is tropical blue, tropical warm. Warm and healing and calm. Tiny fish swim around my ankles. Happy little fish._

_I take a step forward and sand squishes between my toes. The white surf rises up to meet me. The next step is down, into the larger pebbles that mark the beginning of the beach, where the waves crash a little harder. I have to step down into that. I put my foot forward and it sinks. I start to lose my balance until a strong hand grabs mine. I look up and another hand grips my waist. I’m pulled forward, out of the surf until I stand on solid ground._

__

__

_He takes my hand and brushes his lips across my knuckles. I look into dark eyes, obsidian eyes. Except they aren’t obsidian. I can see deeper, can see the pupils within. See them dilating. A warm mouth presses into mine and he kisses me. Cinnamon and honey, spicy and sweet. I breath._

__

_“Thane.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for sticking with me. Epilogue to follow.
> 
> It's odd writing a story when you know from the beginning what you want the last word to be. I figured every now and then Shepard's mind would wander and she would almost say it, but even just saying the word would be too painful. At the end, though, at the very end she could be free and just...be happy.
> 
> Anyway, like I said. Please stand by, the epilogue will be up shortly.


	18. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think you're done crying?
> 
> THINK AGAIN MOTHERF*CKERS.
> 
> AHAHAHAHAHA
> 
> At least this time they should be sentimental tears. Plus, KROGAN BABIES.
> 
> https://goo.gl/images/fqErde
> 
> Oh, and fun little fact. Up until now, this whole story has been written in first person. Let that sink in as you reread it.

The blue drell pushed the stroller along the pathway, occasionally looking over and giving a smile to his lovely orange and cream wife, who held the hand of their toddler. They made their way past the fountains and perfectly manicured lawns, new construction and architecture that graced the Presidium since its rebuild within the last decade. Old and new statues dotted the paths, remembering heroes held in deep and fresh memory. A crowd was gathering around one particular statue, made of a strange, nearly glowing stone that was only mined on a few backwater human colonies.

The crowd gave way to the drell and his wife. They walked to the front until they were greeted by three hulking krogran with a gaggle of young, a turian and quarian couple, a dark haired woman and her younger sister, and a teacher with half of her head shaved sporting, if it was possible, more tattoos than the last time they had gathered for this ceremony.

The crowd was made up of more than just the original crew, who were all considered heroes in their own right. Wellwishers, admirers, those simply grateful for their lives. Every year the crowd was smaller. The first year it had overflowed the Presidium. Security had to be brought in from other Wards just to contain it. But ten years later, the crowd was small enough that the drell could look everyone in the face and greet them with a somber nod. Heroic fame died quickly in a bustling and lively galaxy.

Ten years. Ten long years of rebuilding, repairing, communicating, diplomacy, negotiations, peace. That’s why they were here. It wasn’t just to mourn. The statue they all stood before represented more than just the woman it portrayed. The sacrifices that had been made so that they could live in a united galaxy.

But what of the woman?

That first ceremony, the first unveiling of the statue when the Citadel had been rebuilt, exactly one year after she had succumbed to her wounds following the Reaper War. He had been asked to speak, since documents had been found naming him her legal heir. At first he tried to pass off the honor, convinced that someone else would be better suited to the job. The quiet, small ceremony he organized in his new apartment, similar to the one she had organized for his father, however, calmed his fears. The words spoken by all of her friends in that hushed atmosphere opened his eyes to a woman that the galaxy could never know. So he wrote a short, appropriate speech for the masses, hitting all of the right notes about peace and strength and courage, one that would go down in the history books but rang completely hollow when it came to the real woman. And set him on a ten year journey to find her.

What he had discovered was remarkable. Commander Alexandra Shepard, Survivor of Mindoir, Butcher of Torfan, Hero of the Reaper War, would live on in her friends. They would keep her alive in their memories. They all knew facets of the real her, as if she were a giant gemstone. His father had known one facet. David Anderson had known another. In a small way, even he himself had known a part, one that no one else had ever seen. He had found her secret, buried in the ashes. And left it buried there. Combined, her friends could put together the full gem. Alexandra Shepard would never die. She would live on in the memories of the Milky Way Galaxy. Electromagnetic waves, even now, were carrying messages about their victory to other galaxies in the universe. 

With the current ceremony over, the old friends hugged and kissed, made half kept promises to keep in touch, and scattered. Kolyat waved at his wife, sending her on while he dawdled a bit at the statue, still rocking the stroller with its precious cargo.

The plaque at the base read simple facts. Name, rank, official birthday, death. Hero of the Reaper War. It made no mention of his father. He didn’t expect it to. Their relationship wasn’t part of the official record. 

Kolyat knelt down and whispered a prayer in the drell language. He drew a package out of his pocket and unwrapped it, pulling out a glass vial containing a clear liquid. His father’s body had been given back to the sea and Shepard’s had been cremated and the ashes scattered at her request, so he had no grave markers with which to complete this final duty. The statue would have to suffice. He placed the vial at the base of the statue and put a hand over his three chambered heart.

“I’m sorry it took so long. May it bring both of you peace.”

With that completed, Kolyat stood and lifted his infant daughter, his beautiful desert rose, out of the stroller and strode to catch up with his wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank you all again for sticking with me to the end.
> 
> This story has meant so much to me over the last two years. When I started it, I was still really upset over the way Thane’s death had been handled and needed a way to come to terms with the end of the Mass Effect series. MEA hadn’t come out yet, so Mass Effect was, as far as I was concerned, over.
> 
> Right around the middle of writing this, I went through my own crisis. I met Keythe Farley (Thane’s VA) back in 2014, so before I ever dreamed I’d be able to get my headcanon out in a coherent story. I told/thanked him for his work, saying that Mass Effect had gotten me through some of the worst times in my life. Everything I had meant at that time pales in comparison to what I went through in 2016. I won’t get into the gritty details, but it took me a long time to come to terms with what happened to me, and this time I really can say that Mass Effect, and this story, actually helped. 
> 
> I’ve been playing Mass Effect since 2008. I’ve been Commander Alexander Shepard for nearly 10 years. If Commander Alexandra Shepard can survive everything she went through (except her dead space husband), then so can I. Also in my alternate headcanon where Thane survives, Shepard doesn’t fall for the Indoctrination at all and everyone lives happily ever after.
> 
> So anyway, I want to thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for the comments, thank you for reading through. As a bonus, I leave you with two last things, a sort of treasure hunt.
> 
> What secret did Kolyat find? (There are clues scattered throughout the story)
> 
> What did Kolyat leave at the base of the statue? (You’ll just have to guess this one)


End file.
